Finding Israel’s Soul at the Movies

Ma’aleh film school explores and embraces the religiously observant life.

Many Jewish artists pride themselves on having empathy for the “the other,” even — especially – for Palestinians.

For example, “Miral,” a film released earlier this year, shows a Palestinian girl living under an Israeli occupation depicted as absolutely brutal. The director, Julian Schnabel, a Jew, was quoted as saying that he had “a personal Jewish responsibility” to make such a film, which was distributed by Harvey Weinstein, who’s Jewish, too.

Rabbi Irwin Kula has said of “Miral,” in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, that what’s missing in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a “lack of empathy on both sides.” Miral “is fundamentally a meditation on empathy.”

The difficulties of being an Orthodox filmmaker in Israel prompted the founding of the Ma’aleh School of Television.

That only begs the question: In recent years, how many films have been made — anywhere — with empathy for, say, West Bank settlers? Of all the Jews in the film business, how many ever felt “a personal Jewish responsibility” to make films empathetic to Orthodox or old-school Zionist lives?

That long unanswered question, and the ongoing difficulties of being an Orthodox filmmaker in Israel (it’s a problem in Israel as much as anywhere else), prompted the founding in 1989 of the Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem, primarily by several Modern Orthodox artists. Ma’aleh says it is the only film school of its kind, committed to producing work by filmmakers “inspired by their Jewish heritage,” including the prophetic heritage that was not only about scolding Israel but loving, comforting and defending Israel, as well.

Ma’aleh students are free, in their projects, to explore any Israeli topic whatsoever, fiction or documentary. The only requirement, aside from no work on Shabbat (a rarity in the film business), is that there be no overt sexuality, gratuitous violence or crude language.

The viewer never doubts that the Ma’aleh films fully respect – even love -- all the Jewish characters and Jewish laws that come into play, much as no one doubts that Thornton Wilder, writing “Our Town,” or Frank Capra, directing “It’s A Wonderful Life,” were anything but in love with American small-town dreams and values, while not shying away from the truth that someone in Grover’s Corners or Bedford Falls might consider suicide, or how it can all turn into Pottersville if just one good man has a run of bad luck, or wasn’t born.

Ma’aleh has changed Israeli film and TV. Hannah Brown, a film critic for the Jerusalem Post, reported in 2010 that “in decades past, religious characters could often be seen as the butt of jokes in silly comedies…. But these new films take their religious characters seriously. They have also sold tickets both here and abroad, and have won prizes at festivals around the world.” In recent years, “religiously observant directors and movies on religious themes have claimed an increasing share of the limelight and have become part of mainstream local cinema.”

Among Ma’aleh’s graduates are the creators of “Srugim,” a hit Israeli television series about Modern Orthodox single men and women in Jerusalem.

Harold Berman, Ma’aleh’s director of resource development, says he knew someone “who wanted to make a film, set in the West Bank, with a kind of Zionist script,” only to get a rejection from a Tel Aviv producer who said, “‘Zionism is no longer relevant.’”

Yet, it might be obvious that several Ma’aleh films about the West Bank are more relevant than ever. “Barriers,” a film about the complexity but justification of checkpoints (shown this week in the Jerusalem Film Festival) is a drama, but what’s fascinating is that several Ma’aleh settlement films are comedies. “Evacuation Order,” directed by Shoshi Greenfield, for one, is the story of a secular, leftist soldier, for whom the West Bank is alien territory, sent to evacuate an illegal hilltop settlement. He ends up falling in love with a beautiful female settler with long flowing hair and an ankle-length dress. The settler woman can’t imagine abandoning a thyme-speckled hillside that she sees as entwined with her soul. Beyond the film’s gentle humor, there’s the underlying truth that as a prelude to peace, or evacuation, Israelis must find a way to love the Jewish “other.”

Greenfield, the director, took a settlement story “to a whole new place,” says Neta Ariel, director of the school, “because she knows what it is to be a settler, and self-humor can be very strong and very refreshing.”

In a more bittersweet comedy, “Eicha,” the daughter of an American settler family, wants to change her name from Eicha (she was born on Tisha B’Av), a wink at the names – too creative by half — favored by some religious Zionists. Was there ever a more haunting, ethereal musical theme than the cantillation used for the Book of Eicha? It’s tune floats through the soundtrack.

Robert Avrech, writer and producer of “A Stranger Among Us” and “The Devil’s Arithmetic,” told The Jewish Week, “I wish Ma'aleh had been around when I was an aspiring screenwriter.”

Not all participants in Ma’aleh films are Orthodox. Ariana Gutman, a particularly enchanting actress, e-mails from Israel: “It was a sheer pleasure working” with Ma’aleh. “I’m not religious and playing a Modern Orthodox young woman,” in the film “Newspapers and Flowers,” was “a unique and transformative experience. In fact, I believe it was the first time I came to closely encounter the world of young Modern Orthodox people and the difficulties young religious people are confronted with at this time in Israel, looking for ways to integrate their beliefs, religious customs, and special lifestyle with that of modern life.”

In Ma’aleh films, the land is as sensual as anything else. Einat Kapach, who handles Ma’aleh’s international relations, says that when she did her graduate work at Ma’aleh, “my goal, my purpose, was to go to the desert and film an extreme long shot, because in Israeli films there wasn’t enough connection to the land and the places and the space.”

Modern Israel may be the greatest story ever told, but one consistently hears from Ma’aleh’s artists, “if we don’t tell our story, who will?”

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 2

(2)
Doreen Nayman,
July 31, 2012 7:44 PM

Mr Schnabel goes too far.

Whilst I applaud the concept of empathy, I would like to see more balance. For every film he makes in this vein he could (or should) make another showing the other side of the coin, or his motivation could be misconstrued.
He could be classified by some as a traitor to his people.

(1)
Baruch,
August 22, 2011 7:47 PM

Revolutionary

Love him or hate him, Che Guevara was the greatest of revolutionaries. I believe he said, "No man can call himself a revolutionary if he does not first love his own people." Good words to send to Mr. Schnabel, Weinstein and the fans of Miral.

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Since honey is produced by bees, and bees are not a kosher species, how can honey be kosher?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

The Talmud (Bechoros 7b) asks your very question! The Talmud bases this question on the principle that “whatever comes from a non-kosher species is non-kosher, and that which comes from something kosher is kosher.”

So why is bee-honey kosher? Because even though bees bring the nectar into their bodies, the resultant honey is not a 'product' of their bodies. It is stored and broken down in their bodies, but not produced there. (see Shulchan Aruch Y.D. 81:8)

By the way, the Torah (in several places such as Exodus 13:5) praises the Land of Israel as "flowing with milk and honey." But it may surprise you to know that the honey mentioned in the verse is actually referring to date and fig honey (see Rashi there)!

In 1809, a group of 70 disciples of the great Lithuanian sage the Vilna Gaon, arrived in Israel, after traveling via Turkey by horse and wagon. The Vilna Gaon set out for the Holy Land in 1783, but for unknown reasons did not attain his goal. However he inspired his disciples to make the move, and they became pioneers of modern settlement in Israel. (A large contingent of chassidic Jews arrived in Tzfat around the same time.) The leader of the 1809 group, Rabbi Israel of Shklov, settled in Tzfat, and six years later moved to Jerusalem where he founded the modern Ashkenazic community. The early years were fraught with Arab attacks, earthquakes, and a cholera epidemic. Rabbi Israel authored, Pe'at Hashulchan, a digest of the Jewish agricultural laws relating to the Land of Israel. (He had to rewrite the book after the first manuscript was destroyed in a fire.) The location of his grave remained unknown until it was discovered in Tiberias, 125 years after his death. Today, the descendants of that original group are amongst the most prominent families in Jerusalem.

When you experience joy, you feel good because your magnificent brain produces hormones called endorphins. These self-produced chemicals give you happy and joyful feelings.

Research on these biochemicals has proven that the brain-produced hormones enter your blood stream even if you just act joyful, not only when you really are happy. Although the joyful experience is totally imaginary and you know that it didn’t actually happen, when you speak and act as if that imaginary experience did happen, you get a dose of endorphins.

These chemicals are naturally produced by your brain. They are totally free and entirely healthy.

Many people find that this knowledge inspires them to create more joyful moments. It’s not just an abstract idea, but a physical reality.

Occasionally, when I walk into an office, the receptionist greets me rudely. Granted, I came to see someone else, and a receptionist's disposition is immaterial to me. Yet, an unpleasant reception may cast a pall.

A smile costs nothing. Greeting someone with a smile even when one does not feel like smiling is not duplicity. It is simply providing a pleasant atmosphere, such as we might do with flowers or attractive pictures.

As a rule, "How are you?" is not a question to which we expect an answer. However, when someone with whom I have some kind of relationship poses this question, I may respond, "Not all that great. Would you like to listen?" We may then spend a few minutes, in which I unburden myself and invariably begin to feel better. This favor is usually reciprocated, and we are both thus beneficiaries of free psychotherapy.

This, too, complies with the Talmudic requirement to greet a person in a pleasant manner. An exchange of feelings that can alleviate someone's emotional stress is even more pleasant than an exchange of smiles.

It takes so little effort to be a real mentsch.

Today I shall...

try to greet everyone in a pleasant manner, and where appropriate offer a listening ear.

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